3/13/25
malena and i had a really good talk in the groupchat while dove was asleep. the TLDR; those who love you will make you better.
I wanna be a popstar - 2/22/25
listening to brat rn. this album was so good. i got really sick of it at one point but with party 4 u blowing up on tiktok its made me go back to brat and charli’s music in a good way. even though its all new fans rejoicing in this song ive known since before it came out and i want to gatekeep i cant help but be happy to hear it.
its genuinely one of my biggest desires to make music. ive been at it for like, 10 years now. i tell this story like its something a famous artist would say in an interview for fans to be like, “wow. thats an amazing come up story”. it was honors chemistry B as a junior in highschool. the class was full of sophomores and it was just me and one of my best friends at the time jacob. bailey had left that semester to go to a different school. he just had a baby like a few months ago. i was so into making music on my phone on garageband and i was so bad. but the shit i was making sounded so good to me at the time, and my friends thought so too. but thinking back it just wasnt good. well in honors chemistry (not sure how i got into honors), maybe two weeks into the class jacob got his kneecap shattered playing hockey. he didnt come to school after that for weeks and weeks so i was all alone in a class with kids that were younger than me and so annoying. so i would sit in that class every day, not a lick of attention paid, with my headphones in making beats on garageband. bad ones. but i spent so much time doing that and sure, i got better. but i didnt get good per se.
the point of me writing this is to tell how i still suck so bad but for some reason ive never given up lol. i have the kind of ADHD where i hear about a new hobby and spend a lot of money to get into it and then i drop it really quick when i find another beginning of that cycle. but for music… ive always came back to it. i guess cause its fun even if im bad. but anyway, maybe in another 10 years ill finally be good.
now like, 4 years ago (maybe not that long idk, its a blur) my friend nora and i made a few songs together and they were going in a good direction but i just couldnt stick to it for some reason. i still run “intertia” back to this day. genuinely the best song i ever made. nora wrote and sang and i produced. she did so good she has a beautiful voice and an interesting perspective. i go through phases where i make bangers and then phases where i go back to listen to it and im like WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS. but yeah.
my friends conor robertson and liz freel (a couple) make music under the name Trauna and ive done a few spotify animations for them. one time we were talking about, i think? charli xcx? or pop music in general. and he mentioned how someone said he just makes pop music. his response to that was, yeah, i do, i like pop music, and thats what im trying to make. and that was so beautiful to me for some reason. i stand with conor. we really do love pop music.
My top five chili powders ranked - 1/17/25
1. gochugaru
2. kashmiri chili
3. hungarian hot paprika
4. togarashi
5. szechuan chili flakes
Highballs - 12/23/24
I’m starting to notice that i have really bad luck at bars and restaurants. part of me thinks its because im particular about what i want, but another part of me thinks… this is what (especially) bars are for. and what im asking for is never really that difficult. so i wanted to share some of my recent unlucky bar and restaurant experiences.
the first one happened last time we were in new york city. we had reservations for an omakase. I thought i was well researched and this one had a few specific things on the list that i wanted… wagyu, caviar, uni, etc… we arrive and sit in the waiting area. they do the omakase service every hour on the hour. we sit down and the servers pour water into the glasses sitting in front of us. theyre the exact same octagonal ikea glasses we have at home. i take a drink and stare down the ikea logo at the bottom of the glass. the service starts and dove whispers to me to look at our chefs little cleaning towel. it was askew. i look at the other chefs towels and they sit ordered and square. we’re served a few decent pieces of fish and we notice we werent given any ginger to cleanse our palette. dove asks the server and she politely reminds the chef of it. we’re waiting for our next piece and i realize theyre just playing like, the radio. like, drake was playing. im a drake fan okay. and this is when i realize, if im paying $150 a person, i want my experience to be a little more intentional. i dont want to drink out of the same glasses i have at home. i dont want to listen to drake. im on vacation. im paying you to take me out of the reality i live every day. I struggle with whether or not i should speak up to restaurant managers about my critiques. on one hand, im a service industry guy, so i understand that we dont get paid enough to deal with some random customers unreasonable and unsolicited critiques. but on the other hand, if i was a restaurant owner i would want to hear these things. whatever. we pay our big ass bill and go back to jimmy and britas. apparently that night dove wakes up in the middle of the night to throw up. lol.
the next one happened the night dove and i went to go see the anime feature “Look Back” that was written by Tatsuki Fujimoto. There’s a new place called Pide & Stick on bridge street. my friend (also named) amman has been telling me to find a place where i can get this turkish flatbread called Pide, so when this place opened i was excited to try. we walk in at like 5:30 or so and its completely empty. just me and dove. we sit and the bar and order some kind of paloma. it comes in a really innapropriate glass for the drink (or any alcoholic drink). we order a fattoush salad and a lamb pide. the salad comes out. “here’s your fattoush salad” says the bartender. it is not fattoush salad. it has red peppers in it. we read over the menu and the salad perfectly fits the description of their garden salad. now i have a question… what happened? did the bartender ring in the wrong salad and try to pass it off as a fattoush salad? did the kitchen make the wrong salad and the bartender brought it to us having no idea what a fattoush salad is? the lamb pide comes out. theres a bunch of lemon slices all over it. like, the lemon was sliced up into really small pieces and sprinkled all over the flatbread. maybe 13-15 pieces of lemon. i start by taking each piece off. then as were eating it im like, maybe they’re meyer lemons and youre actually supposed to eat them. i pop one in my mouth. nope. at this point im just sad. cause i was really excited to try a dish ive wanted to try for a long time and it was just bad. we ask for the bill and i spend $60 on one of the worst meals ive had in grand rapids probably ever. me and dove laugh about it and enjoy our movie.
gonna combine the next two experiences cause they both involve a highball. the whiskey highball is one of the most popular drinks in japan. just a shot of whiskey, soda, and a lemon peel expressed on the glass. served really cold. but a highball is by definition a carbonated beverage with alcohol added to it. like a mule, or even a tequila soda. a rum and coke. we go to a bar that i actually really like (despite throwing up their brisket once), we sit at a table. i see the japanese whiskey suntori toki on the wall. i ask for a highball with the suntori. bartender goes behind the bar and i see him take out his phone. then for a little bit he talks to his coworker. then he takes his phone out again. it took him like 6 minutes to even begin making a drink. i lose track of him and eventually he comes and drops off a drink. he says what it is but i couldnt hear him. “thats what you asked for right?” no. sorry bro. its not. and you couldve asked me if you werent sure. but i like to assume my bartender DOES know rather than DOESNT know. i tell him its fine and ill still enjoy it. its some sort of tequila drink. this last time was a few days ago, we go to GinGins where some friends of mine work. its a really busy bar and restaurant. i complain to kennedy that every time i order a highball i get something thats not a highball. apparently the lead bartender specializes in higballs. we’re walking into the restaurant and i see that on a sign outside it says “HIGHBALLS”. thats a great sign. we sit at the bar and i ask the non-lead bartender for my suntori highball. “i dont know what that is but i can ask the other bartender” i feel like i should let my body crumple onto the floor and just stay there. the other bartender comes over to me and says “you just want a highball with the suntori yamazaki?” yup! except hmmm, ive never heard the word yamazaki before. but i know its some kind of whiskey. i get my drink and take a sip. its so lemony. its room temperature. i can tell its whiskey and soda but with lemon juice added to the drink. WRONGGGGGGG. LEMON PEEL ONLY. the whole point is that the soda opens up the flavor of the whiskey. i cant taste anything now. im just… sad. we get the bill. my whiskey soda with lemon cost $26. i acknowledge thats my fault and that i ordered a whiskey that actually cost more than the one i THOUGHT i was ordering. its okay. im not mad at them for that.
the moral of the story… in a world full of whiskey sodas… be a cold ass Suntori Highball.